Memo: Regarding Personal Archeology (for starters) – Dave Olson's Creative Life Archive

Memo: Regarding Personal Archeology (for starters)

Sent to a friend who was feeling confused about how to get started archiving and documenting one’s own creative life ~ shared here for edification – sorta for business-y types i suppose

In brief: Gotta just start… choose the things which are important to you and interesting about you, but make this easy by “meta documenting” your documentation. 

what may look like *too much* and clutter-y is really a delightful afternoon or 3 of discovering and contextualizing your projects and life

Ergo: Regarding personal archeology… Rather than feeling sh!tty, start by doing the *easy things* to chronicle the things you’ve pulled off this last bunch of years.

i.e.

  • List of all the speaking engagements you’ve done
  • List of all the events you planned/ wrangled/ coordinated/ hosted
  • List of speaking gigs you rocked
  • List of all the media, tv appearances/ news write-ups List of all the publications/articles you are in or wrote etc
  • List of all the jobs/positions you held

Then you can start to chronicle/ archive the particular artifacts from each of the above as available.

You might fall into a very nice rhythm – practical meditation in a way.

Turn off the TV, put on the music and space out with yourself and you’re fascinating history.

These kinds of things are good mental exercise but also I put forth somehow “important” and future *you* will be grateful for present day *you* for doing so.

Of course some examples at my website #NotAPlug Let me know if you require further encouragement or advice.

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